Results of a study that claims to expose a correlation between high implicit racial bias and resistance to Obama’s health care reform initiatives popped up in my twitterstream this morning. (Follow me @allaboutrace) “Racial prejudice a factor in opinions of Obama, study finds ‘Hidden biases’ behind opposition to president and his healthcare plan” was released by UC Irvine.

“We show that Obama’s race – not just the ideological character of his policies – is a factor in some of the opposition to his proposals,” said Eric Knowles, assistant professor of psychology & social behavior and lead author of the study.

First the researchers determined levels of racial prejudice:

Beginning in the weeks prior to the 2008 election, researchers interviewed 285 white, Asian and Latino people, the majority of whom classified themselves as politically slightly left of center.

Anti-black bias was assessed through a task that required participants to sort words or names associated with black and white culture into positive and negative categories. The more “black” words a subject considered negative, the higher his or her level of prejudice was judged to be. Source

Then the subjects were asked questions about Barack Obama and various health care reform proposals:

Researchers then looked at attitudes toward Obama, determining how subjects voted and how they felt about his approach to healthcare reform. People high in anti-black bias were 43 percent less likely to vote for Obama than those with a lesser bias.

Shown a single healthcare reform proposal and told it was either Clinton’s from 1993 or Obama’s, 65 percent of highly prejudiced participants supported the “Clinton” plan, while just 41 percent agreed with the same proposal attributed to Obama. Subjects who showed little bias were about evenly split on “Obama’s” healthcare plan: 48 percent opposed and 52 percent in favor.

Those with a bias also were more likely to have specific worries about the policy, such as that it would lead to socialism, raise costs and promote abortion. Source

My first thought about responses to the question comparing health care reform proposals, was that because President Obama is perceived as moving far left by many who identify as center-left or center-right, it would make sense that the more “moderate” President Clinton would be given the benefit of the doubt. And I think the responses do have political, ideological components as well. But these results are not so simple, or pretty.

The fact that those with higher implicit racial bias disapproved of Obama linked proposals in such higher numbers brings me back to the fact that our hidden perceptions and assumptions about race are powerful determinants of how we view the world. And they remain so until we do the hard work to pull them out and at least accept awareness that they exist.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Please share your thoughts below.